West Wind
POEMS AND PROSE POEMS
Mary Oliver
Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
...
Copyright
Dedication
CONTENTS
Part I
Seven White Butterflies
At Round Pond
Black Oaks
The Dog Has Run Off Again
Am I Not Among the Early Risers
Pilot Snake
So
Spring
Stars
Three Songs
Shelley
Maples
The Osprey
That Sweet Flute John Clare
Sand Dabs, Three
Forty Years
Black Snake This Time
Morning Walk
Rain, Tree, Thunder and Lightning
The Rapture
Fox
Gratitude
Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
Dogs
At the Shore
At Great Pond
Part 2
WEST WIND
Part 3
Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston New York 1997
Copyright © 1997 by Mary Oliver
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from
this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
For information about this and other Houghton Mifflin
trade and reference books and multimedia products, visit The
Bookstore at Houghton Mifflin on the World Wide Web at
http://www.hmco.com/trade/.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oliver, Mary, date.
West wind / Mary Oliver.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-395-85082-7
I. Title.
PS3565.L5W4 1997
811'.54 —dc21 97-2986 CIP
Design by Anne Chalmers
Typeface: Adobe Garamond
Printed in the United States of America
QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOR
MOLLY MALONE COOK
CONTENTS
Part I
Seven White Butterflies [>]
At Round Pond [>]
Black Oaks [>]
The Dog Has Run Off Again [>]
Am I Not Among the Early Risers [>]
Pilot Snake [>]
So [>]
Spring [>]
Stars [>]
Three Songs [>]
Shelley [>]
Maples [>]
The Osprey [>]
That Sweet Flute John Clare [>]
Sand Dabs, Three [>]
Forty Years [>]
Black Snake This Time [>]
Morning Walk [>]
Rain, Tree, Thunder and Lightning [>]
The Rapture [>]
Fox [>]
Gratitude [>]
Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith [>]
Dogs [>]
At the Shore [>]
At Great Pond [>]
Part 2
WEST WIND
1. If there is life after the earth-life, will you come with me? [>]
2. You are young. So you know everything. [>]
3. And the speck of my heart... [>]
4. But how did you come burning down... [>]
5. There are night birds, in the garden... [>]
6. When the sun goes down... [>]
7. We see Bill only occasionally... [>]
8. The young, tall English poet... [>]
9. And what did you think love would be like? [>]
10. Dark is as dark does. [>]
11. Now only the humorous shadows... [>]
12. The cricket did not actually seek... [>]
13. It is midnight, or almost. [>]
Part 3
Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches [>]
Acknowledgments [>]
Part I
Some persons of a scientific turn were once discoursing pompously and, to him, distastefully, about the incredible distance of the planets, the length of time light takes to travel to the earth, &c., when he burst out," 'Tis false! I was walking down a lane the other day, and at the end of it I touched the sky with my stick."
—Life and Works of William Blake, A. Gilchrist
Seven White Butterflies
Seven white butterflies
delicate in a hurry look
how they bang the pages
of their wings as they fly
to the fields of mustard yellow
and orange and plain
gold all eternity
is in the moment this is what
Blake said Whitman said such
wisdom in the agitated
motions of the mind seven
dancers floating
even as worms toward
paradise see how they banter
and riot and rise
to the trees flutter
lob their white bodies into
the invisible wind weightless
lacy willing
to deliver themselves unto
the universe now each settles
down on a yellow thumb on a
brassy stem now
all seven are rapidly sipping
from the golden towers who
would have thought it could be so easy?
At Round Pond
owl
make your little appearance now
owl dark bird bird of gloom
messenger reminder
of death
that can't be stopped
argued with leashed put out
like a red fire but
burns as it will
owl
I have not seen you now for
too long a time don't
hide away but come flowing and clacking
the slap of your wings
your death's head oh rise
out of the thick and shaggy pines when you
look down with your
golden eyes how everything
trembles
then settles
from mere incidence into
the lush of meaning.
Black Oaks
Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,
or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance
and comfort.
Not one can manage a single sound, though the blue jays
carp and whistle all day in the branches, without
the push of the wind.
But to tell the truth after a while I'm pale with longing
for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen
and you can't keep me from the woods, from the tonnage
of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.
Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a
little sunshine, a little rain.
Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from
one boot to another—why don't you get going?
For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.
And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,
I don't even want to come in out of the rain.
The Dog Has Run Off Again
and I should start shouting his name
and clapping my hands,
but it has been raining all night
and the narrow creek has risen
is a tawny turbulence is rushing along
over the mossy stones
is surging forward
with a sweet loopy music
and therefore I don't want to entangle it
with my own voice
my little dog to hurry back
look the sunlight and the shadows are chasing each other
listen how the wind swirls and leaps and dives up and down
who am I to summon his hard and happy body
his four white feet that love to wheel and pedal
through the dark leaves
to come back to walk by my side, obedient.
Am I Not Among the Early Risers
Am I not among the early risers
and the long-distance walkers?
Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing,
free to everyone, and everything?
Have I not thought, for years, what it would be
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?
What will ambition do for me that the fox, appearing suddenly
at the top of the field,
her eyes sharp and confident as she stared into mine,
has not already done?
What countries, what visitations,
what pomp
would satisfy me as thoroughly as Blackwater Woods
on a sun-filled morning, or, equally, in the rain?
Here is an amazement—once I was twenty years old and in
every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,
and in every motion of the green earth there was
a hint of paradise,
and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.
Above the modest house and the palace—the same darkness.
Above the evil man and the just, the same stars.
Above the child who will
recover and the child who will not recover, the same energies roll forward,
from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the next.
I bow down.
Have I not loved as though the beloved could vanish at any moment,
or become preoccupied, or whisper a name other than mine
in the stretched curvatures of lust, or over the dinner table?
Have I ever taken good fortune for granted?
Have I not, every spring, befriended the swarm that pours forth?
Have I not summoned the honey-man to come, to hurry,
to bring with him the white and comfortable hive?
And, while I waited, have I not leaned close, to see everything?
Have I not been stung as I watched their milling and gleaming,
and stung hard?
Have I not been ready always at the iron door,
not knowing to what country it opens—to death or to more life?
Have I ever said that the day was too hot or too cold
or the night too long and as black as oil anyway,
or the morning, washed blue and emptied entirely
of the second-rate, less than happiness
as I stepped down from the porch and set out along
the green paths of the world?
Pilot Snake
had it
lived it would have grown
from twelve inches to a
hundred maybe would have
set out to eat
all the rats of the world and managed
a few would have frightened
somebody sooner or later
as it crossed the road would have been
feared and hated and shied away from
black glass lunging
in the green sea
in the long blades of the grass
but now look death too
is a carpenter how all his
helpers the shining ants
labor the tiny
knives of their mouths
dipping and slashing how they
hurry in and out
of that looped body taking
apart opening up now the soul
flashes like a star and is gone there is only
that soft dark building
death.
So
This morning
the dogs
were romping and stomping
on their nailed feet—
they had hemmed in
a little thing—
a field mouse—
so I picked it up
and held it
in the purse of my hands,
where it was safe—
on the blank face
of my thumb—
in a burst
of seedy teeth
it sprinkled
my whole body with sudden
nails of pain.
The dogs
were long gone—
so under
an old pine tree,
on the spicy needles,
I put it down,
and it dashed away.
For an instant
the whole world
was still.
Then the wind
fluttered its wrists, a
sweet music as usual,
though as usual I could not tell
whether it was about caring or not caring
that it tossed itself around, in the boughs of light,
and sang.
Spring
This morning
two birds
fell down the side of the maple tree
like a tuft of fire
a wheel of fire
a love knot
out of control as they plunged through the air
pressed against each other
and I thought
how I meant to live a quiet life
how I meant to live a life of mildness and meditation
tapping the careful words against each other
and I thought—
as though I were suddenly spinning, like a bar of silver
as though I had shaken my arms and lo! they were wings—
of the Buddha
when he rose from his green garden
when he rose in his powerful ivory body
when he turned to the long dusty road without end
when he covered his hair with ribbons and the petals of flowers
when he opened his hands to the world.
Stars
Here in my head, language
keeps making its tiny noises.
How can I hope to be friends
with the hard white stars
whose flaring and hissing are not speech
but a pure radiance?
How can I hope to be friends
with the yawning spaces between them
where nothing, ever, is spoken?
Tonight, at the edge of the field,
I stood very still, and looked up,
and tried to be empty of words.
What joy was it, that almost found me?
What amiable peace?
Then it was over, the wind
roused up in the oak trees behind me
and I fell back, easily.
Earth has a hundred thousand pure contraltos—
even the distant night bird
as it talks threat, as it talks love
over the cold, black fields.
Once, deep in the woods,
I found the white skull of a bear
and it was utterly silent—
and once a river
otter, in a steel trap,
and it too was utterly silent.
What can we do
but keep on breathing in and out,
modest and willing, and in our places?
Listen, listen, I'm forever saying,
Listen to the river, to the hawk, to the hoof,
to the mockingbird, to the jack-in-the-pulpit—
then I come up with a few words, like a gift.
Even as now.
Even as the darkness has remained the pure, deep darkness.
Even as the stars have twirled a little, while I stood here,
looking up,
one hot sentence after another.
Three Songs
1
A band of wild turkeys is coming down the hill. They are coming slowly—as they walk along they look under the leaves for things to eat, and besides it must be a pleasure to step alternately through the pale sunlight, then patches of slightly golden shade. They are all hens and they lift their thick toes delicately. With such toes they could march up one side of the state and down the other, or skate on water, or dance the tango. But not this morning. As they get closer the sound of their feet in the leaves is like the patter of rain, then rapid rain. My dogs perk their ears, and bound from the path. Instead of opening their dark wings the hens swirl and rush away under the trees, like little ostriches.
2
The meadowlark, with his yellow breast and a sort of limping flight, sings into the morning which, in this case, is perfectly blue, lucid, measureless, and without the least bump of wind. The meadowlark is a spirit, and an epiphany, if I so desire it. I need only to hear him to make something fine, even advisory, of the occasion.
And have you made inquiry yet as to what the poetry of this world is about? For what purpose do we seek it, and ponder it, and give it such value?
And also this is true—that if I consider the golden whistler and the song that pours from his narrow throat in the context of evolution, of reptiles, of Cambrian waters, of the body's wish to change, of the body's incredible crafts and efforts, of life's multitudes, of the winners and the losers, I lose nothing of the original occasion, and its infinite sweetness. For this is my skill—I am capable of pondering the most detailed knowledge, and the most fastened-up, impenetrable mystery, at the same time.
3
There is so much communication and understanding beneath and apart from the substantiations of language spoken out or written down that language is almost no more than a compression, or elaboration—an exactitude, declared emphasis, emotion-in-syntax—not at all essential to the message. And therefore, as an elegance, as something almost superfluous, it is likely (because it is free to be so used) to be carefully shaped, to take risks, to begin and even prolong adventures that may turn out poorly after all—and all in the cause of the crisp flight and the buzzing bliss of the words, as well as their directive—to make, of the body-bright commitment to life, and its passions, including (of course!) the passion of meditation, an exact celebration, or inquiry, employing grammar, mirth, and wit in a precise and intelligent way. Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on its long white bones, of turning into song.